The Real Truth Behind the Marvel Price Hikes

[iloveclones]

I'm not rich enough. I'm more like a capitalist processed meat by-product. Or pork rind.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

You don't have to be rich to be a capitalist pig. You're just not a very good capitalist pig in that case.

 

[Anubis]

Capitalist Snausage.

 

[hippie_hunter]

That's a lot of wishful thinking. I'm willing to bet they could drop it to $1, and they would not start drawing in new readers. I'm sorry, but they won't. The culture has moved on to other things. All you would be doing is giving a break to people who are going to buy them anyway. It would be like selling iPods at whatever it costs to make them (what 5 bucks or something? where are the petitions calling Apple greedy bastards?)

Disney has all but said they're not all that interested in the publishing wing. Why would they want to start mucking with a pricing strategy that is, hmmm, what's the word...working? winning? dominating?


Bottom line...the future is going to be online. Marvel/Disney should be spending resources figuring out what model will allow them to distribute their characters there.

Disney has historically been interested in comics for quite a while. Walt Disney Comics and Stories is the third longest comic book series out there behind just Detective and Action Comics. Disney is one of the largest comic book publishers in Europe. And they've been wanting to get into the American market for some time by purchasing CrossGen, licensing the Muppets, Pixar, and their traditional comics to Boom!, and now with their purchase of Marvel.

And really, I just can't see the future of comics being online. The vast majority of comic book readers and fans are going to want something tangible to keep and boost their collections.

The reason why there are fewer comic book readers now is because we are in tough economic times where people have less money to spend on frivolous things such as comics, and companies, especially Marvel, are constantly raising the prices, losing readers in the process.

Lowering prices to $1.99 would be an excellent way to get former comic book readers back on board. And considering that things concerning publishing are going to change (Disney is probably going to want to sell the comics in the magazine sections of major grocery chains such as Wegmans, Food Lion, Kroger, etc. and major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target) it would be a lot cheaper for an average person, especially children to pick up a regular Marvel Universe title.

 

[Anubis]

Actually, the reason why comics don't sell as much as it did is because people don't read.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Actually, the reason why comics don't sell as much as it did is because people don't read.

Oh comics will never approach their levels during the days of speculation, but I think readership will improve dramatically if there were lower prices and more access.

 

[Darthphere]

Yeah, especially since in the last few years it's become "hip" to read comics. Mostly graphic novels and collected editions though. The attention span of the socially driven hipster teen would not allow for a month to month commitment to a comic book. Hence, why I think we should eliminate mini-series and have graphic novels come back in a big way.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'd support that. I miss graphic novels in the first place. If you want to tell a short-form story, being able to pace it how you want in a graphic novel seems vastly superior than having to fit the rigid constraints of a mini-series (that'll be collected and probably primarily read as a TPB later anyway).

 

[Darthphere]

I'd support that. I miss graphic novels in the first place. If you want to tell a short-form story, being able to pace it how you want in a graphic novel seems vastly superior than having to fit the rigid constraints of a mini-series (that'll be collected and probably primarily read as a TPB later anyway).

Paying $12 for a 100-150 page story is real reasonable to me.

 

[iloveclones]

^ Again, this is another great opportunity for Marvel Digital. Test-run it there, and then release it as a whole as a GN/TPB if it does well.

The Thor vs. Wolverine would be a good example. What they should have done, is release the first part free. So people like Corpy could get a peek at it. If they like, they have a choice: subscribe to MD, or wait for the mini/ one-shot/ TPB to be released. Either way, they drum up interest without giving up the bank.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, but they announced they're releasing it as a one-shot after it concludes on the digital service anyway. I therefore have no incentive to subcribe to the digital service, even if the first part were free. It would effectively be $5 or $9 a month for that one thing plus a collection of comics I probably already have the majority of vs. $4 for the one-shot containing only the material I wanted in the first place.

 

[iloveclones]

Well, you're talking about this one particular one-shot. I'm talking more in general. Of course it wouldn't be worth it to buy it for this one thing. But, while you're there, you might see some other things that you like. Not the old stuff, but more recent MD exclusives. There was one for American Eagle that I thought was pretty good, Monsters and Mutants ( I think that was the name of it) that I thought was very funny, and I see they're doing Spider-Girl there. Now, none of those things, even put together, would get me to subscribe. But eventually, I think it reaches a point where it would be enticing to some. And really, I think it's a great tool to get "fringe" stuff out there to test the waters a little.

 

[Dread]

Marvel needs to have a pay-as-you-DL angle for their digital. Instead of paying like $9 for a whole subscription to everyone as the one and only option, offer DL's of each for, say, $2-$3 each with maybe the cover and a page or two for free as a preview. I mean, every single DL comic ACROSS THE INTERNET, even porno/fetish ones, have that basic pay system. But Marvel, a multi-billion dollar company with some "masters of the universe" style executes can't figure that out when I just did in five seconds. Mind boggling. And that is the sort of thing that makes audiences cynical.

If Marvel had slowly incremented price hikes, there would have been less reaction. Quarter here, quarter there, so on. Instead it was buck at once, with Joe Q giving increasingly condescending replies when asked about it. It was poorly handled. Imagine if Mr. Jobs at APPLE decided to increase the price of an iPod an extra $100 for NO visible benefit; no extra feature, no new button or whistle, nothing, just because he could, and he answered criticism with, "Because we can, now shut up and stop whining, I know everything and if you don't like it, don't buy them sucker!" like Joe Q says behind the lines a lot. Trust me, not even sympathy from surgery would save Jobs from some backlash, or some criticism of, "well, he handled THAT poorly". Marvel needs some PR improvement, and some better salesmanship. They're the biggest fish in a small pond in terms of sheer comic sales, but they need a Billie Mays style guy to push monthlies. And while Mays may have not always told the truth about products in infomercials, he wasn't nearly as condescending or as bad at interviews as Joe Q sometimes is.

If the buyout with Disney at least results in someone sitting down some of the Marvel folks and going, "Look, it's alright to THINK your customers are gullible ******s, but don't blatantly TREAT them like gullible ******s", then it could improve things.

And, as I said before, the price shift in THOR at least is a sign of Marvel for one book and instance putting their money where their mouths are. One excuse they gave for $4 books was that, basically, some creators are high caliber and thus paid decently, and they needed to increase prices to be able to chase and pay salary to said talent. Obviously JMS was/is such talent. Gillen right now isn't, so Marvel at least fairly figures $4 an issue of THOR without an A-List writer was unfair. It hasn't stopped them with mini series, mind you, but at least in this one instance I have to say they were fair.

Of course, there still are some readers bitter about the $2.99 thing from 2005...

 

[TheCorpulent1]

If Marvel offered a per-issue purchase price or one-time access fee for individual issues, I'd use their digital service. I just don't want to subscribe to the service for a whole lot of junk along with the few things I actually want to try. I'm not sure why they refuse to offer individual issues for like 99 cents or something like that.